TP: Auto Focus vs. Manual Focus

I thought I would start a debate on AF lenses vs Manual focus. Many forum members past and present bring it up all the time, Canon's USM this or Nikon's that or Minolta whatever. Has anyone ever stopped and thought what a professional photographer had to do before AF? They had to know their equipment, that's what! Look at all of the events that have been captured prior to AF.

Sometimes I feel all of these nice gizmos have made us all a little lazy and have allowed us to get away from really knowing our equipment better. A pre-AF photograper had be able to read a light meter, set the aperture, set the shutter speed, focus and take a picture quickly.

What are your views on this?

Honestly if I wanted to do all decisions myself all the time I'd get a praktica or zenit or something.

Most of the money that goes toward a better body is for it's ability to understand and help you in what you deem not worthy of my precious time.

Shaocaholica wrote: Soon, you'll be able get a 100MP camera built right into your eye and you'll just have to compose with your eye(s). All the light metering will come from your brain.

Already got one, just can't download them or print them out. but sometimes i just close my eyes and browse.

On a seriouse note, and there might even be one, in 30 years or so we will have more mega pixels or even giga pixels, but the thing is you have to be able to "see" the shot first and use the equipment at hand. Auto is here to stay but manual works in certain circumstances and auto in others.

Don't get me wrong, I love all of the gizmos that are available today, I guess the reasoning for my arguement is, did I miss that shot because the AF wasn't quick enough or was it because I didn't prepare properly for this situation.

I don't believe a faster lens will make me a better photographer, I beleive a better understanding of photography and everything that goes into it will make me better.

None lens in the world would make you a better photographer.
I want to do everything myself too I even use my AF lenses in MF many times.

I think the most important thing is to know your camera, how it meassures the light, when to under or over expose a little bit.

Everything my old MF Minolta X700 Can do, my 7D can do as well. If I want to go MF, it´s right at my thumb.
When I bought my first AF camera (Dynax 500si) I said goodbye to the majority of the OOF pictures I got with the X700.
When I bought my first digital camera (Dimage 7i) I took more pictures and experimented more with photography, than I have ever done before.
My 7D has taken me one step further to better photograpy. I can do with that for a long time I think.
(leaving myself and my skills as the one point that needs improvement :-)   )
In short, the last few years has been very givig to me, when it comes to photography. (err.. not a word about the $$$$ !!)
By nature i´m a lazy person when it comes to certain things - don't care much for doing PS on the computer for example.
I feel that the automatic camerafeatures leaves me more room to be creative and i´m comfortable with the possibility of going manual, if I wish to do so.
AF is not a limit to me. If AF don´t do the job, I switch to MF.
I´ve still got the X700, but I can never go back to using it.

But really - the camera is just a tool for taking photographs... Why not enjoy these technologically exiting times we are living in..

BTW : I think this is a good discussion. Sometimes it´s good to stop and think.

Finn

cjc181166 wrote: Don't get me wrong, I love all of the gizmos that are available today, I guess the reasoning for my arguement is, did I miss that shot because the AF wasn't quick enough or was it because I didn't prepare properly for this situation. I don't believe a faster lens will make me a better photographer, I beleive a better understanding of photography and everything that goes into it will make me better.

Ahhh ... that makes more sense. I agree; even when the technology "lets you down" you either had too high expectations or weren't prepared to deal with limitations - actually, I see those as different views of the same problem ;)

There are times that I use manual focus because I'm working slowly, doing macro or landscape and looking for DOF. I'd never want to change that. There are times I use manual focus because no AF sensor lines up with my subject and/or I'm tracking someone moving in & out when shooting w/shallow DOF. I don't see any AF system handling this well. And then there are times when I resort to MF because AF can't lock or times I miss a shot because a lens takes too long to rotate into focus ... these seem like fixable problems. Yes, it's my fault because I ought to be prepared to handle the situation (though, as I mention, prior to AF, MF systems *were* better at handling them, between focus travel & well damped focus rings, rangefinder focussing, better VFs ...) But there's definite room for improvement.

Honestly, I don't think that most of the griping for anything we all gripe for is needed to make us better photographers; whether faster lenses, wider zoom range lenses, better VFs, VF grips, more fps, these are all just enabling/luxury items ... and that won't stop us from griping for them ;)

Nothing beats an understanding of what goes into a photograph, from the composition and visualization, the lighting, the workings of your camera ... I typically keep my compact digicam in Auto mode, and even usually leave it in Auto ISO and get better pictures than my non-photographer friends who do the same because of a combination of prefocussing on the technical side and simply knowing what & when to shoot. (I must say the digicam is quite remarkable at generating ready-to-print exposures, even if that means blown highlights ... with the 7D, I have to be much more aware of what I'm photographing to ensure good exposures). Nothing beats a comment like "you really captured the spirit of the kids" after showing your shots to some parents !

- Dennis